country music
by AkaOkamiRyu
Summary: He listens to county music sometimes: when he's waiting for a target, when he's doing paperwork, when he's thinking about her. - She doesn't know about the last one, doesn't think too much in regards to the middle one, but the first one always makes her smile.


I heard Kenny Chesney's "Come Over" and the first thing I thought of was Clint and Natasha, which eventually stirred up this idea. This chapter is an introduction to the idea, but it will be a series of vaguely connected one shots, featuring different songs—not necessarily county and not actually in a song fic format. They'll just play a part in some way.

The timeline is scattered all around, but this first one takes place early on in their partnership.

Obviously I don't actually own The Avengers, Natasha or Clint.

* * *

Country Music

* * *

He listens to county music sometimes: when he's waiting for a target, when he's doing paperwork, when he's thinking about her [not that new, pop-y, rock-y, boot stomping stuff. The slow songs, that all feel old and worn, that you can hum or strum on a beat old guitar, the ones that sort of wind themselves into a moment].

She doesn't know about the last one, doesn't think too much in regards to the middle one, but the first one always makes her smile.

* * *

They're on an op in Spain when she first discovers it. She's sitting at a table at a café, bright and beautiful as the perfect springtime sunshine that's lighting the street all around them. Their target is a courier, who serves her a cup of coffee with a warm, but not too bright, smile and an impressively sincere "enjoy" before bustling off to greet a new customer. The job is a perfect front—it's easy for him to pick up documents to pass along between the big fish and the small ones, no one pays him much notice, except to leave an appropriate tip.

She sips at her coffee pensively. He watches from above.

He's tucked back in a sheltered little overhang along a nearby roof; close enough to see her every facial expression, far enough up that no one will notice him. His eyes are trained on the scene below, fingers ready, weapons at his feet, all senses alert. A comm link is tucked into one ear—a constant connection to Tasha, and a waiting line to S.H.I.E.L.D. if he needs it [he has no intention of needing it]. Nestled in his other ear is an ear bud, the mat of which is dangling just off his shoulder. [If he were feeling as poetic as the singer crooning away in his ear, he might spout some lines about how those headphone buds are a perfect metaphor for them—dangling, connected, tethered, separated—but he's not, and his mind has other places to be].

Usually he keeps the music down, low and buzzing, just another piece of the scenery, but his damn mp3 player [they're still pretty new, not really cheap quite yet, but it's one luxury he's indulged in because he's sick of having to leave cd players behind during ops and having to find new stores to buy the same three cds he loves from, because what man buys seven copies of a Kenny Chesney album in three months?] is fritzing out on him—it jumps volume of its own accord and he just about rips the thing off as the decibel level takes him by surprise.

"County, Clint?" He can all but hear her smirk, not to mention see it though she hides her moving lips behind her coffee and the pages of the book she's not actually reading [even he is impressed by how perfectly angled this little hideaway is, he misses nothing].

"Too cliché for you sweetheart?" He's got a witty rejoinder for every drip of her sarcasm [he's the only person she's ever met that can keep her on her toes and farm from finding annoying, she finds herself enjoying every snarky exchange]. He also has a dozen pet names that he only dares use on missions, over their comm link, because he knows she'd knock him flat if he did when they were near each other [for appearances, he thinks sometimes, when he just barely catches the ghost of a grin flit across her face].

"Just cliché enough, I think. Turn it up a little?" She adds as the faulty hunk of plastic mysteriously quiets.

He knows she doesn't need to see him to know he's grinning, but he lets her hear it in his voice, slipping it in between the lines of his sass: "anything for you darlin'," and he sounds just like the sweet Midwestern boy he was probably suppose to grow up to be, before all of this. She says nothing, but he catches the slight upturn of her lips even at this distance as he notches the volume up a bit and they continue to wait.

* * *

They're together now, the courier put out of commission and the documents he'd collected stowed safety in their bags. [Coulson will have a field day looking them over, plenty of coded messages for him to decipher].

They're walking down a street, looking for all the world like any ordinary pair of people looking for dinner when it starts. Soft as a whisper, he hears her humming the song she'd first teased him about, a smile on her lips and a knowing look in her eye [what she knows, he'll be damned if he understands—he just threads his fingers through hers without looking at her, continuing the "ordinary pair of people" charade as they slip into a restaurant].

* * *

He listens to county music sometimes: when he's waiting for a target, when he's doing paperwork, when he's thinking about her [not that new, pop-y, rock-y, boot stomping stuff. The slow songs, that all feel old and worn, that you can hum or strum on a beat old guitar, the ones that sort of wind themselves into a moment].

She doesn't know about the last one, doesn't think too much in regards to the middle one, but the first one always makes her smile.

* * *

Ideas, comments and suggestions are always appreciated. Also, if you have a song you think would fit well with these two, please feel free to suggest it. I'll try to accommodate them.

Take Care,

AkaOkamiRyu


End file.
